You most likely thought "now, what has happened to them". Well, nothing actually. The last week has really been a boring one with nothing really happening on board. I can summarise it in just a few words: No wind, no fish, no ships, lots of humidity, little energy . . . . . . Do I need to continue?

As I type this, things have changed a bit. We have a little wind, enough to sail by. We reached our waypoint off the Brazilian coast yesterday (Friday, January 22) and picked up the breeze, about 15 knots, and have had our twin head-sails up since. We also picked up the current off the coast and have been doing over 7 knots since yesterday morning, without the drone of the diesel. Ah, what bliss!

Now that we are off the Brazilian coast, we are also close to shipping lanes and we have been seeing plenty ships, ranging in size from fishing boats to super tankers. Our ship spotting competition is in full swing with Louis in the lead with 12 ships, myself second with 8 sightings and Greg tailing along with only 4 sightings. However, all can change very quickly. It is also an incentive to keep those eyes alert as we do not wish to be anywhere close to other vessels.

Our fishing is non-existent. Nothing has taken our lures and in desperation we changed them yesterday to see if we would have any luck. It worked, in a way. We lost a brand new lure and hook within an hour of the change - but still nothing landed! We really need to catch something to supplement our diet. Oh well, something must come along shortly.

As we have been drawing closer to the equator, the heat has remained relatively stable but the humidity has shot up dramatically. We are all suffering from the humidity but are slowly acclimatising ourselves to it. It also makes you drink lots of liquids but saps the energy out of us. Ah, for a nice cold larger!

We should be off our next waypoint, situated off the coast of a city called Fortaleza, by midday. We then turn about 10 degrees to starboard and start a long leg of about 1200 nautical miles to the next waypoint of Suriname before cutting up towards Barbados and then through the channel south of the island of St Lucia, where we enter the Caribbean Sea. The leg also takes us past the Amazon Delta and across the equator.

I will update the blog again during the coming week as we progress up the northern coast of South America. For now, best regards to all from the crew, Joy, Greg, Louis and myself, John.